‘You’re right.’ I watch Erna pace the room, deep in thought. ‘Of course you are. I’ve been so stupid – so soft and pathetic. I’ve made it all too easy.’ I sit up straight. ‘I’ll refuse to marry Tomas unless he lets me keep the baby. I’ll threaten to go to the press. Expose Vati and his affair and his worthless daughter who went with a Jew!’

Erna looks appalled. ‘You can’t do that. You know what would happen to you then.’

‘What?’ I challenge, but I don’t need to ask. We both know I’d end up in a camp; Vati, for his part in the cover-up, would likely be stripped of his position, his house, his beloved newspaper.

‘Your child wouldn’t survive, Hetty,’ Erna says, her face grim. ‘Truth is, they would take it to a room and smother it. What you’re proposing isn’t an option.’

‘What has this nation come to? That they would take babies and smother them…’ My anger has dissolved, replaced by an overwhelming weakness, the feeling of hopelessness.

Erna is nodding, tears in her eyes. ‘They would, Hetty. I’m so sorry, but they would.’ She comes to me then, looks into my eyes and says, ‘You’ve no choice but to go along with their plan, for now. I’ll – I’ll try to think of something. I promise.’

20 May 1939

My wedding day. The dress, pale yellow, is laid out on the chair next to my bed. It’s all folds and layers. Mutti cleverly designed it to distract the eye from my bump. It doesn’t feel real, somehow, this day, this marriage. How do I feel, I hear you ask? Well, my darling, I suppose I’m resigned to it. It’s not the day I imagined. That fairy tale of white sequins and handsome prince with the happy-ever-after is not for me. I think about you and wonder: should I not be jealous, or angry, that you’ve got away from all this? No. Not a scrap of it. I’m glad you have escaped. That I helped to save your life. Somehow, that thought makes this day bearable. And now I just have to do the same for our baby. So for the present, I go along with this grotesque plan and hope for a miracle.

*

The room in the Hotel Sachsenhof, on Johannisplatz, is decorated with violets and sprigs of white gypsophila making it look jolly and bright. Several rows of wooden chairs with cream seats are set out so the few guests can watch our civil ceremony take place. A long table is laid at the back of the room for refreshments later in the proceedings.

Tomas, smarter than I’ve ever seen him, wears a new, light brown suit and patterned tie. His hair is neat and, like the boy who won first prize, he wears a swagger alongside his broad smile.